t(UBRARYf 







THE OTTAWA NATURALIST 



Vol. XXVI. OCTOBER, 1912 No. 7 



ON TWO NEW PALEOZOIC STARFISH (ONE OF THEM 

 FOUND NEAR OTTAWA), AND A NEW CRINOID. 



By Percy E. Raymond. 



Pal^easter? wilsoni, sp. xov. Plate V. 



The remarkable starfish found by J. E. Narraway, Esq., 

 at City View, near Ottawa, and described by Professor Hudson 

 in the May and July numbers of The Ottawa Naturalist as 

 Protopalceaster narrawayi, naturally excited interest in City View 

 as a collecting place. Specimens like Mr. Narrawav's, which 

 can be described as order, family, genus and species nov. are of 

 infrequent occurrence, but such a discovery shows that the 

 possibilities of even so old a collecting place as Ottawa are by 

 no means exhausted. 



In searching for another specimen similar to the one found 

 by Mr. Narraway, Miss A. E. Wilson was fortunate enough to 

 find a pretty starfish of a type hitherto quite unknown in strata 

 so old as the Black River. The specimen is exposed from the 

 abactinal side, and preserves the greater part of one arm, the 

 disk, and the stumps of the other four arms. The diameter 

 of the specimen, when complete, must have been about 75 mm. 

 (3 inches), and the diameter of the disk is 20 mm. This is 

 large for a starfish from the lower Ordovician. The arms are 

 quite convex, with a gentle taper, reminding one somewhat of 

 the common recent starfish, Asterias vulgaris, and as in that 

 species, the arms were probably somewhat flexible. The greater 

 part of the abactinal side of the disk and arms is covered with 

 small convex, over-lapping. V-shaped plates, which are arranged 

 with the point of the V directed toward the margins. Along 

 the crest of each arm there is a single row of larger plates. 

 These plates are quite large and hexagonal in outline near the 

 disk, but become smaller, triangular, and alternate in position 

 further out on the arm. (See upper right-hand figure on the 

 plate). There are two rows of marginals, these plates being 

 larger and flatter than the other plates, and covered with minute 

 tubercles, which may be spine-bases. (See the middle figure 

 on the plate). Close to the disk, the supra-marginals and mar- 



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